“Bitter Melon” (** out of four) was an occasionally funny and endearing melodrama about a Filipino-American family (Jon Norman Schneider, Brian Rivera, Josephine de Jesus, and others) who reunite for the Christmas holidays but soon gather and conspire to kill an abusive member of the family (Patrick Epino) and the rest of the film deals with their debates and deliberations on this. Starts off funny, as you prepare to engage in a screwball comedy in the vein of “Crazy Rich Asians”, but then it goes flat as it becomes progressively more dark and mean-spirited, and it only jumpstarts occasionally. Enthusiastic cast gives it 100%.